I'm Only Sleeping
by Sass Master
Summary: Reno comforts a rattled Tifa after a nightmare. 13th in a collection of 14


A.N.: I'm gonna say, that I have nothing to say. Just read. And oh yeah, this is kind of like a prequel to 'You Like Me Too Much.' I've still got… (ahh crap) about 4 more fics I wanna do in my little 'timeline' and then that'll be it, and I'll put numbers in the summaries so no one gets confused. Alrighty.

**And I'll be cool and say this for once—I don't own them! Yaaaaay.**

**Oh. Title's a Beatles song. Couldn't think of one of my own.**

…**AGAIN.**

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It was one of those really blissful dreams, the kind he didn't want to wake up from—The kind he always DID wake up from as soon as such a thought somehow entered his mind.

Lately, she was all he dreamt of. And lately, he would wake up to find that, to his pleasure, the subject of his fantasies was lying there right beside him.

Or maybe she wasn't.

He blinked a few times to clear the fog in his eyes, squinting through the darkness, trying to see the other side of the bed. Much to his confusion, the oh-so-familiar figure that usually was snuggled within his sheets was unmistakably absent. Craning his neck forward, he tried to determine if perhaps his eyes were playing tricks on him. He wasn't immediately alarmed by the fact that she was gone—often she would wake up in the middle of the night, and would leave to get some water. But as he stretched a hand across the surface to his right, he found her place not only empty, but cold, long bereft of the body heat that he enjoyed warming his bed.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes, discovering them to be more out of focus than he realized. "Teef?" Calling out to her was a futile effort—his voice was too hoarse for her to hear him in some other part of the house, and a quick glance around the room proved that she wasn't lurking in one of the shadows.

Reno rose from the bed at last, officially concerned with Tifa being missing.

The kitchen was his first guess, but when he poked his head out of the hallway, he found it just as vacant as her half of the bed. Frowning, he ventured further to check the living room. The frown deepened when he found it deserted as well.

The idea that she had left the apartment altogether briefly flickered through his mind. But where would she go at this hour? _Why _would she go at this hour? And if she'd really left… would she even be coming back?

Rubbing his face in fatigue and frustration, he turned back around and caught sight of the glow of the nightlight coming from the bathroom. When he reached the door, he found it open, exposing the object of his searches standing inside in front of the mirror.

"Tifa, why are you—?" He felt bad for the fact that he had obviously startled her—she visibly flinched when his voice had pierced the silence. But when she turned to reveal a tear-stained face, he was glad he sought her out. He decided to rephrase his question. "…What's wrong?"

"N… Nothing." She looked away from him again, down at her hands on the counter, wringing the tissue she held.

He stepped a bit closer, not certain if he shouldn't just let her be. "Teef… are you _sure_ you're okay?" She was a terrible liar, but a stubborn one. It would take a lot of coaxing to get her to divulge whatever problem she was having.

"I…" She looked away from the counter, further lowering her eyes to the floor. "I don't…"

When he finally crept near enough to place his hand on her arm, she quickly turned about face and flung her arms around him, sobbing into his chest. He embraced her, planting a kiss on the top of her head. He exhaled softly, lowering his voice and making it as gentle as possible. He murmured into her hair. "What happened, babe?"

She took a moment to compose herself and she let out a shaky breath. "I… had a bad dream." The reluctance she felt in admitting her problem was clearly evident in the tone of her voice. Maybe it was more like embarrassment.

"About what?"

She pressed her face tighter against him, and he could feel the tears on his bare chest. "I don't… I don't wanna talk about it."

"Are you sure?" He was very patient with her—she was obviously quite shaken. "You know you always feel better when you let it out."

She looked up at him and he moved the hair out of her face. "I-I _do_ want to talk about it. It's just…"

"Just…?"

She guiltily averted her eyes. "I just don't want to tell… _you_."

He frowned. She suffered frequently from nightmares—about her parents, her hometown, Sephiroth…

Aeris…

But she would always share thosewith him. What would she be dreaming about that she didn't want to tell him? Another man? Despite his suspicions, he didn't want to push her. "…All right." He rubbed her back when she hid her face again.

"I'm sorry." He heard new tears in her voice.

"No need. Don't worry about it."

They stayed like that for a few minutes, before Reno spoke up again. He gripped her shoulders and moved her away, forcing her to make eye contact. "Teef, I want you to come back to bed," She just stared at him for a moment, wide-eyed, sniffing. "Okay?"

"…Okay."

Keeping his hand on her back, he led her back to where she belonged. When they were both settled, he opened his arms to her. He knew she would never ask outright for the comfort of being held, but he also knew it was what she most wanted. He was relieved to see, when she had gotten comfortable against him again, that she had stopped crying.

After a while spent in silence, his curiosity and suspicion got the better of him. "Tifa."

"Mmm." He felt a pang of remorse when she sounded as though she were nearly asleep.

"Why don't…" How to ask without sounding too nosy? "Why don't you wanna tell me what your dream was about?"

She opened her eyes and focused them on him. "I just… I didn't want you to make you worry." She bit her lip in waiting for his response.

"I'm worried _now_."

She'd always been very responsive to guilt. "I'm sorry. I guess I really should tell you."

"Uhh, well, only if you wan—"

Tifa looked away from him. "I-I _do _want to, I'm just afraid you'll…"

She just trailed off like that, and he wasn't sure if he was supposed to fill in the blank himself, or even she didn't exactly know what she meant. "Look, whatever it is," He made sure they had eye contact before he continued. "I… promise I won't be mad." He didn't have a history of emotionally violent outbursts, and he hated to think that he'd done anything to make her hesitant with him. But if that was what she was scared of, he wanted to put those fears to rest.

"All right," She took a deep breath. "In my dream, you… you…" She broke off briefly, and in her wide-eyed stare he could see the tears resurfacing. "You _died_."

He couldn't say he was happy to hear that, but he certainly wasn't angry. "I did? How?"

"Well, if that was actually part of the dream, then I don't remember it. But… I know who did it."

He raised an eyebrow. "Someone killed me?"

She idly brushed a tear away. "Uh-huh…" She paused. "It was Cloud. He killed you."

Now this was starting to make at least _some_ sense. "Why?"

"I don't know!" she cried out in distress, "I don't _know_… I just know that it was my fault," He pulled her to him again. "Oh God, it was awful. There was blood _everywhere_…" She hid her face again.

Admittedly, he was a bit unsettled by her dream, but he still didn't quite see the reason she was so afraid to tell him. "Tifa, it was just a dream." Even as he said that he regretted it. How often were dreams 'just dreams?' Especially in her case—hers were quite often tied to some trauma or dread.

"I know, but—"

"And did you really think I'd be mad? I mean I'm not _thrilled _you had a dream about me _dying _but it's not like—"

"Reno," Her voice was soft, but it stopped him dead. "It's not… _really _about the dream. It's why I think I had it." She looked as if something very heavy was weighing on her conscience—now he _had _to know what that weight was.

"And why's that?"

She braced herself against his chest so she could sit up. "Cloud he… he's been, um, well… he's been calling the house."

Well this was news to Reno. "…For _what_?"

When she cringed, she realized that this was exactly what she'd been afraid he'd do. "I… I can only be so sure, you know? He's never been very straightforward, but… I think he wants to be with me again."

He stared at the ceiling for a while, carefully processing her words and choosing his next move. "So what have you been telling him then?"

"N-nothing…"

"So he doesn't know that we're—?"

"No. I… didn't want to tell him cause… I was afraid something bad would happen."

"Like in your dream?"

"Uh-huh."

"You think he'd come over here and _kill _me?"

"No! …No."

He sat up as well. "What then?"

"I didn't want to give him a reason to come here! Come here and… upset this whole relationship. Because… I really like what we have together," She lowered her head together. "And it's hard, knowing that I love you now, but I loved him once. It's hard, when I know I don't want him in my life anymore but somehow I can't stay away."

He leaned close to her, forcing her to look up. He pressed his forehead against hers. "So don't take his calls. It's okay if you don't want to tell him about us. What business is it of his anyway?" He gave her a brief kiss when he saw traces of a smile.

"Out of sight, out of mind, right?"

"Definitely. You wouldn't want to turn the old saying into a lie now would you?"

She giggled. "No, of course not."

"Good. Now come on," He pulled her back down into their previous position. "You're wearing me out more than usual."

He was tired as hell, and he was sure it was nothing compared to what she felt like.

OoOoOoOoO

When Reno woke up, he knew Tifa probably wanted to get up hours ago, but he wanted to let her sleep.

He hoped she was finding her sleep restful.

As if on cue, her eyes flew open and fixed on him. "Oh… I had another dream."

He cleared his throat. "Yeah?"

"It was about you…" She continued with a grin. "And me…"

His eyebrow automatically shot up. "Oh _really_?"

"Mmm, really."

"So are you gonna tell me about this one?"

"Uhm…" She put her finger to her face in mock thought. "No, I don't think so."

Now he was disappointed. "Why not?"

"Because," The smile on her face was positively devious now. "It would be a lot more fun for both of us to just reenact it."

Reno made only one important move before he took her up on her offer: He reached behind the bedside table and unplugged the phone, letting them plunge into a world of nightmares and daydreams, uninterrupted.

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**A.N.: Thurr it is. Review, or I will be a sad panda.**


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